Dana Canedy, Former Times Editor, Will Administer the Pulitzers

Dana Canedy joined The New York Times in 1996. Until last year, she led talent acquisition and management training and career development and diversity initiatives.

Naum Kazhdan / The New York Times

By SYDNEY EMBER

July 12, 2017

Dana Canedy, a former senior editor at The New York Times, will be the next administrator of journalism’s most prestigious award.

Columbia University announced on Wednesday that Ms. Canedy would replace Mike Pride as administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes, effective Monday. Ms. Canedy — who was part of a Times team that won the 2001 Pulitzer for national reporting for a series about race in America — will help steer the awards process, working with the Pulitzer board on matters like jury selection. She is the first woman and the first African-American to hold the position.

The prizes are announced each April at a ceremony at Columbia.

“Dana Canedy’s sterling qualifications speak for themselves,” Eugene Robinson, a columnist for The Washington Post and the chairman of the Pulitzer board, said in a statement. “At a time when media organizations are adapting to technologies and the epithet ‘fake news’ is brandished as a weapon, Canedy’s experience, energy, integrity and passion will help the Board focus on its vital mission: identifying and celebrating the best in American journalism and arts and letters.”

Ms. Canedy joined The Times in 1996. Until last year, she oversaw talent acquisition and management training and career development and diversity initiatives. She is the author of a memoir, “A Journal for Jordan: A Story of Love and Honor,” written after her partner was killed in the Iraq War in 2006 while she was caring for their infant son.

She called her selection as administrator of the Pulitzers an “enormous honor.”

“As a journalist and author for more than 25 years, I have tremendous respect for the importance of the prizes in promoting the best in American journalism and arts and letters,” she said in a statement. “In an era of warp-speed digital and social change in journalism and unsettling assaults on a free and independent press, the role of the Pulitzer Prizes is more vital than ever.”